A genre-bending memoir that offers fierce and fresh reflections on motherhood, desire, identity and feminism. At the centre is a love-story, between Nelson and the artist Harry Dodge, who is undergoing gender reassignment, while Nelson undergoes the transformations of pregnancy. Personal, honest and wide-ranging, Nelson explores the challenges and complexities that make up a modern family.
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[October 2007. The Santa Ana winds are shredding the bark off the eucalyptus trees in long white stripes]***
(@HouseMelville, 10 April 2018, 192 pages, ebook, borrowed from @GlasgowLib via @OverDriveLibs)
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I enjoyed this book a lot. I decided to read it after I saw it in a list of top memoirs in a magazine I read. It appealed to me because I've read a lot of memoirs and tend to enjoy them and I'm trying to read more books by or featuring non-binary / trans characters. I don't have a child and I've never been in a relationship with someone who's trans so Maggie's experiences were very different from my own. I think the only way you can read a memoir is to read about someone outside your own experiences. The love story between Maggie and Harry is incredibly moving as Maggie negotiates a very new type of relationship and her own intense experiences. I also enjoyed reading about the changes her body and relationship go through during pregnancy. I like the way the book is structured, into two sections split into numerous little vignettes, a sort of non-linear, stream of consciousness style. This worked really well. I'd recommend this.
